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Beady Eye have just returned with their second album, Be and it's a
record that may make their detractors re-evaluate Liam Gallagher's
post-Oasis band. Alan Corr talks to Beady Eye guitarist Andy Bell about
giving the sixties a good monstering.

Beady Eye have just returned with their second album, Be and it’s a
record that may make their detractors re-evaluate Liam Gallagher’s
post-Oasis band. Alan Corr talks to Beady Eye guitarist Andy Bell about
giving the sixties a good monstering, Liam, Noel and working with
producer Dave Sitek

Andy Bell, well-spoken Oxford gent and hip young-ish guitar slinger,
first encountered Oasis during his time with Hurricane #1 in the
mid-90s. The former Ride guitarist clicked with the Gallagher brothers
and while his own fortunes waned, he was said to enjoy partying with the
then hell-raising Mancs.

After Hurricane #1, a band who owed a serious debut to Oasis, blew out,
Bell had a brief spell with the much-maligned Gay Dad before he and Gem
Archer were invited to join the Gallaghers after the departure of Oasis
founding members, Bonehead and Guigsy. Bell spent ten years in their
ranks, enjoying premier league rock band success for the first time and
stoically enduring the ups but mostly downs of Liam and Noel’s
relationship.

When the brothers eventually fell out for good after a very ugly
stand-off in Paris in 2009, Bell decided to take part in Liam’s plans
for a post-Oasis comeback. Apparently Noel hasn’t spoken to Bell since.
Now Beady Eye have released their second album Be on which Bell has
written three songs. And guess what? They’re the best songs on the
album.

Alan Corr: Is it true that when producer Dave Sitek met Beady Eye first he told you were stuck in 1969?

Andy Bell: “Well he didn’t say it in so many words but we were thinking
the same thing ourselves. We knew we were in a bit of a sixties vibe and
I think we always will be but we’re also open to that being enhanced or
changed. What we did with Dave was very complimentary to our fallback
style. I still think the new album is very sixties and I can hear all
that in there. I don’t think our musical style got changed. I think it
got broadened.”

If not 1969, the spirit of ’68 informs at least one song on the album
– Flick The Finger which samples a speech by at an anti-Vietnam War
rally in London

“Absolutely right. That speech is from a sample we used on a demo and
it’s from a television programme about 1968. There is not much of that
sense of revolution these days. It’s definitely there in the world but
not necessarily in our soap opera and X Factor society. it’s definitely
not in music anyway. Bobby Gillespie said recently that there was no
rebellion in music right now and I was thinking well Flick The Finger is
out now and that’s at least one song with a bit of rebellion in it. I
think people like us and Primal Scream there’s anger in our music in the
rock `n’ roll we do and that comes from a counterculture legacy. It
comes very naturally to me and with Bob, it’s more in his lyrics and his
interviews. In terms of other bands doing that, I’m sure there are lots
of them but I don’t see many.”

You’ve written three songs on Be. In terms of the division of labour,
I know there were rumblings from Noel when you were Oasis about song
writing but it seems there’s a very democratic set-up when it comes to
writing in Beady Eye

“There is. When we’re demoing songs, we rotate though Liam, Gem and
myself. We’ll bring a song in that maybe needs a bit of work and make
the demo. Every song gets a lot of love and we help each other. It
really does show that in some bands teamwork is the way. No one in the
band would claim to be a complete song writer in the way that Noel
Gallagher obviously is, he’s the whole package. In our band, it’s
between the three of us. None of us can deliver everything on our own
and we know that.”

So compared to Noel’s Angry Birds, you really want to have a united front as a band

“It’s the reality. It is a band. It’s as simple as that. We’ve been
playing together for years, just in two different bands so that I think
does come through. Me, Gem and Chris have a beautiful sound together
which really works especially live. For our tour, we have a keyboard
player called Matt Jones, but we’re being joined by Jay Mehler from
Kasabian as a bass player and he’s bringing in something new too.”

One of your songs, Soon Come Tomorrow, initially sounds like a pretty
conventional rock song but there are some very interesting things going
on underneath it all

“I know, it’s crazy. That’s the one where I have no idea what is going
on with it, what’s going on with the atmospheric s. We recorded our
version and then Dave started whipping up this atmospheric soup around
it and it really suits the tune, it lifts it and puts you in a certain
headspace which fits the lyrics. He did a great job but I couldn’t tell
you what he did with it. He uses an early synthesiser for strings called
a solina which was a fake orchestra keyboard thing that was out in the
late seventies.”

The cover art for Be is shockingly retro – a beautiful girl in
profile lying down bathed in the kind of sunlight that only existed in
1974. She is also naked. Are you worried that some American retailers
might take a dim view of this?

"I think the use of a well-placed sticker will cover up any offending
areas and when people get home they’ll pull the sticker off and be
confronted with the full horror of a human body. We thought we were
being quite risqué but nobody seems to have batted an eyelid. The
sticker thing has just solved it without it becoming an issue and even
in Japan they’ve released it.”

Have there been any concerns about Liam’s voice? After years of well,
cigarettes and alcohol and singing with Oasis and Beady Eye, is it
showing signs of wear?

“There has been no concern whatsoever about Liam’s voice. Liam’s got an
amazing voice. In fact, on this album we wanted to take away the effects
we had been using so the voice is a lot more bare and intimate and it’s
double-tracked so much, so it’s in the room with you feeling and that
suits the introspective tunes on the album. Lots of singers’ voices get
tired on tour and Liam really belts it out so he gets tired. He can’t do
three gigs on the bounce and that’s one of the things we have to
observe on tour. His voice is not shot in any way – he is singing
beautifully and I’ll tell you what, check out the session we did in
Abbey Road for Absolute Radio. It’s Liam singing unadorned and he sings
like a little lark.”

The reviews for Be in the British media have been uniformly three out
of five. Do you think journalists constantly hedge their bets when it
comes to Beady Eye?

“Yeah. I’m just pleased that the reviews are generally positive but I
don’t expect to get the gushing ten out of ten type things. This band
has a lot of baggage and I think that’s probably the main reason. I
think the album is great, if only I was reviewing it! The media may not
be fans. It doesn’t bother me as long as we connect with our audience
and I think this time more than the last that’s happening. I have a
feeling that people we are reaching out to our there.”

Even though it’s four years since Oasis split, even now the battle
lines are being redrawn between Noel and Liam. How hard is that to rise
above?

“It’s a weird one. Liam said it pretty well the other day. His favourite
band is The Stone Roses and they’re one of my favourite bands too and
when they broke up, nobody felt the temptation to take sides. Bands
break up and it’s a natural thing especially after 10, 12, 15 years
together. All I can really do is take it as a compliment and take it as
love for Oasis’ music.”

And is Liam - in the words of Noel - still a man with a fork in a world of soup?